I’ve had it with the anti-American bile spewing from that leftist rag Mother Jones magazine – inciting murderous jihadis. These cretins need to shut up and stop killing people.

Oh wait, that’s not what I really wanted to say. I wanted to say, the language being used against vaccine safety advocates is really getting out of control, and a recent example is Mother Jones, which referred this week to the “McCarthyite cretins in the murderous vaccinations-cause-autism movement.” (Jenny, meet Joe.)

Not since the White House warned Americans to “watch what they say, watch what they do” in the wake of 9/11 – before starting the stupidest, longest, most ruinous wars in U.S. history, having cowed most of the press and Congress into submission – has there been a moment like this.

Egged on by the “vaccines uber alles” forces, know-nothing folks like Mother Jones’ blogger Kevin Drum are stepping up the intemperate language to “baby killer” levels not seen since Bill Gates laid that one on Andy Wakefield. (These levels are likely to rise again with RFK Jr.’s new book, out next week, driving them into frenzy.)

Let’s remember that the law provides some fairly easy ways to skip vaccination, from personal and religious exemptions to no mandates at all if children are educated at home. Don’t like it? Change the law. Don’t compare those who follow or advocate perfectly legal behavior to mass murderers.

There’s been a lot of talk recently about parallels between 1914 and now, 100 years later. Here’s another one – as war fever built, free speech was suppressed under the Espionage Act. President Wilson even tried to criminalize criticism of the president. I’m sure he thought that opposing entry into the war would cost lives. Instead it probably cost us a century more of constant war.

Calling us anti-vaccine because we want a safer, saner vaccine schedule and are highly critical of current government policy is like calling Mother Jones anti-American because it wants a safer, saner country and is highly critical of current government policy.

Free speech and relatively free choice is here to stay (let us pray!). The murderous anti-American cretins – wait, the lazy uninformed ideologues -- over at Mother Jones might as well calm down and get used to it.

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The evidence for lower autism rates in less vaccinated populations keeps rolling in – and rolling off the backs of the media and medical establishment.

Thanks to AOA’s Adriana Gamondes for spotting this March article in the Times of Israel: “In Israel, a lower percentage of ultra-Orthodox and Arabic children are diagnosed with autism compared with the general population — and no one is quite sure why.

It goes without saying that nobody at the symposium or in the article raised the idea that a lower vaccination rate might be a suspect here. This is a real sin of omission, given the frequent stories about vaccine-preventable illnesses spreading in Orthodox communities in the United States, including mumps outbreaks in 2009 and 2010 and measles in Orthodox Jewish Brooklyn.

As for the Arabic children, one can only speculate they’re not getting preventive health care at the same level as their counterparts.

But according to the article:

“There are several possible explanations for the findings, including lower awareness and a lack of services immediately available to Israeli Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews. ... Others suggested that culture gaps between Arabic or ultra-Orthodox Jewish children and those diagnosing them, as well as language differences, could play a role.”

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Which reminds me of the Amish, who also have recently spread measles because, in fact, they aren’t vaccinated at the rate of the outside population. Sharyl Attkisson was kind enough to write about my reporting from 2005, “Where Are the Autistic Amish?” pointing out that the CDC expressed remarkably little interest in following up my anecdotal observations of markedly less autism in the Amish world. She noted that I was “targeted by the pharmaceutical vaccine activists who attempt to squelch any such discussion" and that my Wikipedia entry showed the kind of trashing that happens. (There's even a Wiki entry on "Amish Anomaly" designed to further stomp out any lingering doubt that the autism-vaccines-Amish observation has been debunked, discredited, demolished and devastatingly, decisively dismembered as deliberate disinformation).

Proving her point, the trolls pounced: “Far from being ‘an investigative journalist,’ Dan Olmsted is a crank who propagates untruths about both autism and vaccination,” fumed Alec Duncan. “He has had the research about autism rates in the Amish brought to his attention on numerous occasions, and yet he still spreads the lie that the Amish don't get autism. That's not journalism, that is deliberate disinformation.”

A commenter named ke5jf (no, that’s not me) did a better job of taking that down than I could:

“Your references actually reinforce the argument that vaccines might be responsible for autism. We can agree that some Amish do vaccinate. Your reference correctly points out that the Amish have no prohibition against it. But, that same citation also states that the Amish are under vaccinated (it regards this as a problem) and that the Amish tend to pick which vaccines they will agree to use. Not many people contend that all vaccines are equally dangerous. The vaccine (DTP) that killed my wife's daughter was of a certain type.

“Given that your own references describe the Amish as ‘under vaccinated’ and describe a 3X difference in autism rates between the Amish and general population, I fail to see how this information furthers your argument, unless you are making the erroneous assumption that the articles above [by me] have stated that there are NO autistic Amish (it does not) and that NO Amish are vaccinated (again, it does not). From my reading of the article, it simply states that the Amish are less vaccinated than the general population of the USA, and that the Amish tend to have a lower incidence of autism than the general population of the USA. Your references would seem to bear out that conclusion.”

Thanks, ke5jf!

No comment thread that comes anywhere near vaccines and autism would be complete without multiple appearances by the implausibly indefatigable Dorit Reiss. She dispensed with the Amish by resorting to an argument from credentialization – “Olmsted is not a scientist - his claim in a journalistic articles [sic] are not an ‘hypothesis.’ They are a theory - not in the sense of a scientific theory like herd immunity or gravity, but in the colloquial sense - a completely untested, unsupported opinion based on very little data.”

If I were a scientist, I suppose I would understand that!

After bomb-proofing her argument by attributing any potential anomaly in autism rates among the Amish to unspecified genetic miscues (a disingenuous argument), she reverted to disingenuously parsing autism rulings: “And let me remind you that the federal government never compensated a child on the theory that vaccines caused autism, and rejected such claims in the Autism Omnibus Proceeding. The fact that some children with vaccine injuries also had autism is hardly surprising, given the rate of the population, even as rare as vaccine injuries are.”

I don’t usually comment (although I admire those who do take the battle to the bad guys), but I couldn’t resist responding to that one:

“as evidenced by ms. reiss's attempt to claim the government never compensated a child for vaccine-induced autism, there is no straw for which she will not grasp to grind her ax, so to speak. regrettably for her, and even moreso for millions of children, vaccines do cause autism.”

@ Kathy Sincere,
You really are onto something. What you have noticed is painful and scary, but most unfortunately completely true. Some women in state government positions have sold their very souls to Pharma, and they are now even spewing the very same talking points of Pharma and the media regarding vaccines-- complete with venom and hatred and disrespect for their very constituents in their voices. This unacceptable and bizarre change happened to one of my state reps, too-- one who had formerly been a co-sponsor of a philosophical exemption bill in the past! Quite the 180, you might say.

Please be sure to check out the group known as Women in Government-- both Dems and Repub female reps in all states are being recruited, for substantial financial gain, to promote all bills regarding mandating more vaccines and taking away vaccine exemption rights. It is all too clear who is footing the bill for this Women in Government group. See if that female Dem is on their list of favorite participants in the group. It really is illuminating. In fact, why don't you google the name of that particular Dem female rep along with the words "and Women in Government" and see what articles show up?

Great Wrap Dan, but maybe the anti-vaxx movement should start rethinking its call for 'safer' vaccines. Does anyone really believes that if vaccines could be made safer they wouldn't have done so already? Do we really think they enjoy us bitching at them to no end? Perhaps a feat that challenges the immune system in unnatural ways and have it behave in ways it was not design to can only be accomplished through the use of hazardous substances. Perhaps we should just stick to requesting that they demonstrate their vaccines are safe. Calling for safer ones may be over-stepping ourselves, if that's an impossibility.

My husband and I went to a local Democratic meeting tonight in Colorado to strategize for the upcoming election. I brought up the topic of House Bill 1288 which we successfully opposed here in our State; it would have curtailed the Personal Belief Exemption. I expressed my dismay that the liberal Dems in our State House and Senate not only introduced this bill, but almost unanimously passed it. There was a fellow volunteer at this meeting who jumped all over us like we were trying to re-introduce the plague! She was spewing the usual pap about measles,mumps and pertussis on this rise, with children dying. She was so vitriolic and angry that I finally assumed that she had to be part of the medical/pharmaceutical/government triage. I couldn't stand arguing with her anymore, so my husband nicely took over until this person moved to another table. But here's the thing - what moves me to write this - I come home from something like this, just like I did with the CO House and Senate hearings, and I am so agitated that I can't sleep. I started reading this blog and got even more agitated. Reading about Mother Jones and Slate and Dorit Reiss makes me want to write a book myself, like Robert Kennedy. I can't wait to read his book!
All the time this stupid woman at the Dem's meeting was spewing her lies and hatred, what I really wanted to do is scream "Do you know what it's like to have a 41 year old autistic son at home who sits in the basement on his computer because he has no life? Do you know what it's like to bury a son at age 28 who began his descent into mental illness after his MMR booster at age 12 (his eyes rolled up into his head and he had facial tics for two weeks after his shot, but Kaiser Permanente never mentioned the word "seizure")? Do you know what it's like to watch your beautiful daughter be crippled with RA at age 12 after her MMR booster? What a coincidence! And lastly, you arrogant, irritating schmuck, my youngest son only has severe ADHD because I stopped his vaccinations at 6 months. He is not autistic, dead or crippled at age 34. We salvaged one of our four children.
After tonight's meeting, I have decided that rather than giving my time, energy and money to any church or political cause, it will ALL go to fighting compulsory vaccination, and educating people about vaccine toxicity.

Regarding the vaccination philosophy of Muslims, I once had an interesting experience in a park in New Delhi which lies next to an ancient town with a large Muslim population. A Muslim man was strolling with his wife and I questioned him about his health practises and he was happy to explain to me that his four sons were all born at home, except one, all unvaccinated, and all very healthy. This situation appeared to be one carefully considered by him, and he seemed to be proud of his approach . He proceeded to tell me a story about a sick man who asked Allah to cure him . Allah told him to eat the fruit of a particular tree, which he did and was cured. Later, when he was sick again, he ate the fruit and found no effect, so he complained to Allah. Allah replied to the effect that "You thought it was the fruit that cured you. Actually, it was I who cured you".
The basis of his health practises was to trust that God would take care of him and his family. I find the result of this to be not so different from my own concept that millions of years of evolution has given me the health to survive on this planet. I dont think that asking people who have this philosophy, to vaccinated, is going to be successful, We know from the experience in Pakistan , where dozens of health care workers, sent out to give vaccines, have been killed, that dismissing people's religious concepts can be counterproductive .
I would be very much interested to know if the orthodox Jews in Israel are aware that autism is rarely found among their children.

I think the extremist rhetoric is a blatant attempt to get vaccine safety advocates and environmental autism activists "watchlisted" under increasingly broad and sloppy parameters: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/07/23/blacklisted/ Anytime a previously independent, liberal publication uses the term "anti-vaccine," you can

A friend of mine, a good writer and considering doing this --- sent this to me:

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The vile and venom spewed by media against autism parents who speak up about neurotoxins in vaccines is unfrigginbelievable, I bet their kids are the bullies against our autistic kids in the schoolyards.

I post comments frequently and I never get the last----.
What really got me was a comment yesterday in the medical blob by Paul Offit regarding Kennedy's new book. Some "so-called" doctor responded and not his exact words but something like, "And Kennedy's father a.nd uncle killed a half a million American soldiers in Viet Nam. Excuse me but being a Far East history student and a reader of everything available on the JFK assassination, one of the reasons JFK was killed was because he wanted to end the war in Viet Nam. And what does Viet Nam have to do with Kennedy's book on thimerosal anyway? Oh hey, I know. They are all lies

"The evidence for lower autism rates in less vaccinated populations keeps rolling in – and rolling off the backs of the media and medical establishment."

Which only makes it more difficult for the "lap-dogs" at Mother Jones and Slate to explain why public health officials are so adamantly opposed to H.R. 1757 .. sponsored by Rep. Posey and Rep. Maloney .. that would require the study of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children.

As I understand it .. the Vaccine Safety Study Act would direct the NIH to conduct a RETROSPECTIVE study of health outcomes, including autism, of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children.

The main reasons given for not supporting this bill are ludicrous .. especially the .. it's "too hard" .. it's "unethical" .. b.s.

Shamefully .. like their counterparts in Russia's PRAVDA .. wasting their time and ours .. they seek to "demonize" others (McCarthy, Wakefield, Olmsted, etc) for having the personal courage to speak .. "truth to power" .. by holding public health officials accountable for refusing to conduct the ONE study that would provide evidence that vaccines are as "safe and efficient" as they insist they are.

If the "lap dogs" in outlets such as "Mother Jones" or "Slate" .. really believe vaccines are as "safe and effective" as public health officials insist they are .. those "lap dogs" should be the loudest voices demanding the study be done.

And so .. I would ask Mother Jones and Slate .. do you support doing the "vaccinated v. unvaccinated" study .. and .. if not .. why not?

"And let me remind you that the federal government never compensated a child on the theory that vaccines caused autism, and rejected such claims in the Autism Omnibus Proceeding. The fact that some children with vaccine injuries also had autism is hardly surprising, given the rate of the population, even as rare as vaccine injuries are."

Actually, and as you know this because we have discussed this before a year ago:

government officials on different occasions told Sharyl and David Kirby identically:

"The government has never compensated, nor has it ever been ordered to compensate, any case based on a determination that autism was actually caused by vaccines. We have compensated cases in which children exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease. Encephalopathy may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures."

While tantamount to bureaucratic doublespeak this is somewhat different. They may have compensated "encephalopathy, or general brain disease" but without the symptoms of damage such as "autistic behaviour, autism, or seizures" there would have been nothing to compensate. The statement manifestly admits that the conditions are related to the injuries or there would have been no occasion for mentioning them. It is certainly different from saying "some children with vaccine injuries also had autism".

Of course, you could just be a slippery lawyer. I read on the Hastings College website:

"Professor Dorit Rubinstein Reiss is quickly becoming the nation’s foremost legal expert about the potential for tort liability for parents who choose not to vaccinate their children. In addition to running her own blog on the subject, Before Vaccines, Professor Reiss has penned multiple Op-Eds and articles about the dangers of choosing not to vaccinate. Her latest piece in the Recorder discusses California’s new bill AB2109, which goes into effect January 2014, and changes the requirements for parents who want to utilize California's personal belief exemption and send their children to school without the required childhood immunizations."